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Sunday, November 20, 2016

1968 was one of them, and so was 1989. 2001 is seared into
the memory, and now 2016 will join them. What made each of these years so
powerful was not just that they were filled with dramatic events, but that
those events upended our existing assumptions about the way the world worked.

It is easy to be an expert in hindsight, but each of those
years mark the time when the tensions that had thus far been subterranean
finally broke through the surface. Each of these dramatic events were not
contrary to the narrative that came before, but were a graphic manifestation of
it.

For 1968 it was the swirl of racial tension, military
adventurism and state repression that motivated people to hit the streets. In
1989 the gradual crumbling of life behind the Iron Curtain became impossible to
mask in country after country. Twelve years later the seething resentment in
much of the Middle East at American supremacy manifested itself unambiguously in
New York. And throughout this year the growing frustration of blue collar
workers afraid for their future has delivered shocks in ballots across the Anglophone world.

Brexit in the UK, Trump in the US and Hanson and Xenophon
in Australia serve as powerful demonstrations of an underlying
tension, and it is that tension that will shape our politics and societies for
years to come.

If it wasn’t already struggling as a useful organising
principle, the distinction between Left and Right is now almost redundant. The
fact that the shocks have been driven by candidates notionally from the Right
demonstrate how redundant this traditional political divide has become.

In the 1990s it was the Left that fought so strongly against
globalisation, protesting at meetings of the World Economic Forum, World Trade
Organisation and any other international grouping that had the hide to gather
in a major city. The Left had latched on to the idea that globalisation would
create winners and losers, and desperately championed the cause of the latter.
A decade later that concern again showed itself in the form of the "We are the 99%"
protests in cities across the United States.

But it was the Right – in the
forms of Trump, UKIP and Hanson – that were able to successfully harness those
suspicions of globalisation and use them for political advantage.

The fact that the notional Left and notional Right share a
common objective in curbing globalisation shows why this year will cast a long
historical shadow: the issue that defines political identity has changed.

In the Anglophone democracies dominated by two parties,
affiliation has previously been built around a person’s (perceived)
relationship to the economy; a social democratic party being the party of
labour and a liberal democratic party being one of capital. Social agendas and
questions of ethics were then grafted on to those core identities, leading to
the party of labour embracing progressive positions and the party of capital
embracing more conservative ones. The fit was often an awkward one but so long
as the relationship to the economy was the defining question other matters were
secondary.

There were plenty of attempts to breach the divide, some
more successful than others. Ronald Reagan successfully
courted many Democrats while Howard’s Battlers kept the Liberals in power for
more than a decade. Tony Blair in the UK and Kevin Rudd in Australia rose to
power in demonstrating that they were no threat to capital even as they
championed the cause of labour. But in each of these cases the candidates were
consciously reaching across the divide to woo voters away from the party considered their natural home by virtue of their relationship to the economy.

What we’re seeing now is different. This year the parties of
the Right haven’t reached across the divide the woo working class voters away
from their Democratic/Labour/Labor affiliations, but have instead posed a
different question, one in which the answer groups them together.

The question I suspect will shape politics for years to come is “Do you identify primarily as a citizen of your nation or a citizen of the
world?” The answer to this question cuts through the middle of established
parties in a way that will fundamentally reshape political allegiances. People
who stood side by side on social and economic matters will now find themselves
split, while previous ideological enemies may now find themselves surprising
soulmates. For political parties hoping to continue business as usual, the
civil war that awaits will be painful.

It is through asking this question that the ascendant
political forces this year have changed the game.

In Britain the forces for Brexit – primarily the UK
Independence Party and parts of the Tory establishment – stoked fears about the
free flow of refugees and the undermining of British sovereignty by a European
elite. The
result? The Remain vote attracted 60 per cent support in wealthy London,
but fell as low as 41 per cent in the manufacturing-heavy Midlands.

In the United States Donald Trump positioned himself from
the cap down – he wanted to Make America Great Again. This meant opposing the
inflow of migrants, rejecting free trade agreements and abdicating a global
leadership role on foreign policy. The
result? Trump beat Hillary Clinton among voters without a college degree,
Catholic voters and suburban voters, and ran close among voters earning under
$50,000, all generally strong Democratic demographics.

In the Australian context this shift from an economic
affiliation to a citizenship affiliation will upend previous assumptions.

The Labor Party is the traditional home to manufacturing and
services industry workers, many of whom see migration as a threat to rising
wages and view international competition as a race to the bottom. But it is
also home to inner-city cosmopolitans who work in knowledge industries, and
support the easy movement of people across borders and the breadth of consumer
culture made available to them through the fall of trade barriers.

The Liberal and National parties have traditionally been the
political home of small business operators, many of whom have a strong sense of
national identity and fear being undercut by imports, as well as social
conservatives who are suspicious of foreign cultural influences. But it is also
home to corporate managers, who see great opportunities for growth through
liberalised international trade and have embraced global value chains, in which
goods are sourced from all parts of the world.

The Greens is the growing party of choice for creative
workers who seek out global opportunities for work, leisure and consumption,
but it is also the home of many down-to-earth localists who value a strong
sense of community and yearn for high-quality human interactions.

Clichés they are, but they capture typical demographics.
Pose the question about whether they primarily identify as citizens of
Australia or citizens of the world, and the divide is sharp. I’ve had a go at charting the old and new paradigms:

On Team Nation State we find low- and medium-skill workers
who feel threatened by global trade, as well as many people from outer suburban
and regional areas who feel that they miss out on international opportunities.
We also get suburban voters who feel threatened by an influx of migration,
small business operators suspicious of multinational companies and community-oriented
people who fear technology intruding on neighbourly bonds.

Then on Team Global we find knowledge workers who interact
seamlessly with colleagues around the world as well as young people weaned on
global culture and consumerism. Joining them are environmentalists who perceive
global solutions as essential to resolving global problems, and business
operators who seek to minimise trade barriers so they can source and sell their
wares in a global marketplace.

On issue after issue – from trade, to migration, to climate
change and defence – the nation state/global divide seems certain to manifest
itself. It will therefore be increasingly difficult for a party to offer a
coherent and internally-consistent platform unless it is willing to embrace one
approach or the other.

It will be fascinating to watch how the established
political parties deal with the new paradigm. Anyone who continues with the
same old positions based on the same old assumptions will be left for dead. And when historians look back at this tectonic shift, they’ll be
looking closely at the events of 2016

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Last Sunday was my birthday. The plan was to spend a fair
chunk of it at a picnic in leafy-green Yarralumla, getting some sun on my face
as I ate imported cheese, quaffed sparkling white and threw soft toys at my
baby daughter in the naïve hope that she might make some motion to catch them.

It didn’t quote go to plan (a public yoga presentation and a
howling gale put paid to that) but it was still a whole lot better than last
year’s birthday. That was spent in the cardio-thoracic ward of The Canberra
Hospital, awaiting the results of the biopsy on the huge mass that had been
found in my chest.

There was a small part of me that feared that last year’s
birthday (documented
here) might in fact be my last one. Or at least my last one in the carefree
happy-go-lucky life to which I had become accustomed.

But a year on, I remain largely free of care (perhaps
sometimes too free of it for my own good), still chugging along much as I was
before my cancer struck. The biggest change by far in the intervening year has
instead been a positive one – the safe arrival of Amelia in May.

The cancer has retreated from being the life-defining event
I feared it may have been to instead be a brief episode that yields nothing
more than anecdotes to fill lulls in future conversations. A year on, it feels
like little more than a biographical quirk.

Of course, I would be a fool to think it has passed
entirely. I will be in remission for at least another four years, with regular
blood tests and visits to my specialist. And even it that passes period without
recurrence, I will for the rest of my life face an elevated risk of cancer, not
just from the disease but also from the chemotherapy.

The physical evidence of my treatment will forever remain.
Five small scars mark the right side of my body – one from the biopsy and
another four from where tubes were put in place to deliver chemotherapy. In a
way I’m glad to have them there, offering me a daily reminder of tougher times
if they ever stray too far from my mind.

As for my hair, it remains noticeably wispier than the locks
that once stood in their place, and far more difficult to tame in the morning.
But as my mother can testify from her own experience, after a while things
return to normal up there.

I know I’m one of the lucky ones. Plenty of people diagnosed
with cancer don’t get to experience their next birthday. Their journey from
diagnosis to death is an express route that allows little time for
contemplation. But that’s not my fate. Instead I join the millions-strong army
of survivors, getting on with life.

I feel an obligation to pay forward all the support I
received. Throughout my treatment I heard from several friends, some I hadn’t
spoken to in years, about their experience with cancer. Their words help gird
me for the pathway through chemotherapy; the aching fatigue, the dulled
sensations, the existential angst. I stand ready and willing to offer support,
advice and even just compassionate listening to others going through the
experience. Don’t be shy now.

All up it’s been a year of making memories. From the darkest
days in the cancer ward to the lightest of joys in the maternity suite, there
are plenty of things that will stay in my mind from the previous year. Here’s
hoping the year ahead yields more of the good type.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

“Oh look,” I say, raising my eyebrows as I gently tickle the infant’s tummy with my index finger, “isn’t this baby…” And then I pause for a second, restraining myself from inserting the usual adjective. “Isn’t this baby bright,” I utter, praising any eye contact the baby can achieve and even just the ability to limit its own dribbling, if that’s what it will take to establish my contention that baby is, indeed, bright.

I know I’m kidding myself, but I just can’t make myself offer the usual praise for a baby – isn’t this baby cute?

Now that I’m the father to a newborn – 12 weeks old and going strong – I’m as tempted as most other parents to offer up that usual description whenever I’m asked about my daughter. Sometimes I hold back, but often I yield to it.

Why do I dislike “cute” so much? To me, “cute” is a celebration of docile conformity. Cute is cherubic cheeks and fluttered eyelashes. Cute is knowing one’s place in the world rather than challenging it. Cute is an uncomplicated smile and an easy-going personality.

There’s a gender element to cuteness. I suspect girls are more likely to be praised for their cuteness than are boys, perpetuating the idea that girls should be polite, delicate and well-mannered to win the approval of adults. The word is the socially acceptable form of praising attractiveness, which is rightly becoming arcane as a description for children because of the values that go with it.

When I was a kid, I was never cute. I was loud and opinionated, confident of my place and willing to assert myself. I’d run around getting sweaty and dirty while collecting snails. I was bright and curious, but never cute. (Three decades on, little has changed, except perhaps for the snails.)

Other kids were cute and got plenty of praise for it. They were the kids who dressed nicely, sat quietly and smiled a lot. It used to frustrate the heck out of me that adults would give praise to the cute kids, but not to the bright kids.

I came to resent the celebration of cuteness and the “know your place” attitude that it encouraged.

It is no coincidence that the other contexts in which cuteness is praised also celebrate docility. Some pets are cute – furry ones, small ones or ones that play up their own helplessness. A Chihuahua is cute, but a Doberman, not so much. Some boy bands are cute – ones that are clean-cut and unthreatening, posing no challenge to the established order. One Direction may be cute, but the Sex
Pistols were never described that way.

(The Oxford is unintentionally revealing in this respect. The three example sentences it offers for cute cite kittens, animals and the eyes of a woman as bearers of cute.)

So when it comes to other people’s kids, I search intently for any quality to praise other than cuteness.

Which brings me to my daughter. In the early weeks it was hard to find much to praise other than her cuteness. Like all babies in their first few weeks, she was completely incapable of discretionary activity – her life was spent acting out reflexes: eating, excreting and sleeping. Given this reality it would have been wishful thinking for me to praise brightness or curiosity. And so, reluctantly, I would praise her cuteness instead.

Of course some may think I’m taking this all too seriously. After all, celebrating cuteness in a baby is not going to do him or her any harm.

But sooner or later the baby will turn into a toddler and understand what’s being said, in doing so understanding what behaviours are rewarded and what behaviours are discouraged. This is the process of socialising a child – teaching it what do to and what not to do.

That’s when I’ll be trying extra hard not to praise cuteness. I hope our daughter grows up to be assertive, creative, independent and thoughtful. These are the characteristics I would much rather praise.

Sunday, July 03, 2016

“Well,” said my haematologist, leaning back in his chair
thoughtfully, “yes, I guess so.”

Exhale. And so it was that I found out I had beaten cancer,
with a whimper rather than a bang.

It was a suitable bookend to my
experience in October, when I found out my body was afflicted with this wretched
disease with a rather underwhelming encounter with a distracted doctor.

It had been about six months since I’d felt the effects of
the lymphoma, and three months since the last of the chemotherapy washed
through my body. I knew there was a fair chance I was in the clear, but it’s
very comforting when that observation is made by a medical professional with a
PET scan of my body at his fingertips.

As the doctor explained, it doesn’t mean that the mass in my
upper chest has disappeared entirely, but that the tumour that does remain is
small and innocuous. Those cells may never disappear from my body entirely. A
further PET scan later this year was recommended to check whether the tumour was
continuing to shrink.

The daily grind of the chemotherapy treatment already feels
like a distant memory. When I was in the midst of it I had an intimate
knowledge of each of the drugs in my cocktail, living my life by a drug treatment
cycle and feeling the aches and fatigue of each of their side effects. Now that
it is not a part of my life that information has slipped from my mind, the
specifics of each step a distant memory.

Part of the reason why is practical; if I don’t need that
information to influence my actions, why bother retaining it? But part of it is
also a coping mechanism. Forgetting the detail allows me to better close that
slightly terrifying chapter of my story. Were those details to remain in my
mind I fear I would become what I wanted to avoid – a person who defines
himself by his disease.

I know I’m one of the lucky ones. For now at least, my
treatment has been limited to the poisonous elixir of chemotherapy. Others in
my position have endured my course of treatment only to be told that danger
still lurks within them and they need to undergo radiotherapy. Even as their
body reeled from the chemical assault they would need to ready themselves for
more. The physical challenge would be tough, but the angst that went with it
would be a test of endurance.

Of course there’s some chance I’ll be back for more
treatment down the track. Being in remission means that the immediate threat
has passed but there’s a real prospect that the cancer starts to grow again and
I’ll need to take action. For the next five years, and in reality for the rest
of my life, I will need to be vigilant for the symptoms of the dragon within me
again breathing fire, like night sweats or fluctuations in weight.

There’s also the sad irony that the battery of diagnostic
tests I’ve had along the way – PET scans, CT scans and x-rays – each carry
their own risk of bringing on, you guessed it, cancer. So I could conceivably
get a cancer resulting from the tests I needed to track my previous cancer.

Being a cancer survivor also carries its own psychological burden.
As my former colleague and fellow cancer survivor Michael Coulter has
written, life can be tough even once you’re out the other side:

In the end, I was among the
lucky. The chemo did its job, the side effects receded, and a year later I am
much as I was, barring an aversion to ice-cream and a certain nervousness about
unexplained aches and pains.

It’s taken all of those 12
months, though, to reach a point where having had cancer isn’t the first thing
I think about when I wake up. Because the disease’s final surprise is that even
when it's gone, it isn’t. Cancer owns your life for weeks, months or years, and
when you get it back it won't be in the same shape you left it.

For many people that’s because they
have lasting physical or mental damage, caused either by the disease itself or
the treatment. For others, it’s the difficulty of readjusting to a life that
isn’t focused around the simple facts of treatment. When your attention has
been so exclusively on the here and now, the future can take you by surprise.
One survivor described the feeling as cancer having paused their life. “I'm
still waiting,” she said, “for someone to press play.”

Ghoulish as it may seem cancer treatment instills routine and
a sense of purpose. My visits several times a week to the cancer clinic were
important appointments to be kept, sparing me the self-pity that can come with
days at a stretch in bed.

Those visits also gave me a personal connection to many of
the medical staff. I wouldn’t be naïve enough to call them friends – they were
doing a job, and doing it damn well – but the staff were great allies and a
support network. Just as they got to know my story, I got to know theirs. I
found out about their background, their children, their world view and the
daily dramas of their lives. To absent myself from that was akin to suddenly
departing a particularly sociable workplace.

Were I to return to my pre-cancer routines, of office work
during the day, evenings relaxing on the couch and bike rides on the weekend, I
suspect I would be at risk of daily life feeling inconsequential given the
existential threat I recently felt. It would be hard to feel some emotional
engagement with those activities when the suspicion that none of it really
matters would have lurked in my mind.

But my circumstances are a bit different. In the two months
before I was given the all-clear my first daughter was born. Having the end of
my time as a cancer patient overlap with the start of my time as a father means
I have been spared any sense of returning to my previous rhythm. The sense of
great meaning I attached to my days during treatment has merely continued in
another form, merely shifting from a mood of sorrow to one of bliss.

Eventually both the cancer and the early months of
fatherhood will recede into the distance and I will perhaps be susceptible to
the difficulties of returning to life as normal. For now, though, I’m in the
throes of another big life event and am happy to stave off that mortal enemy,
mundanity.

Every time I am back in the cancer clinic I am sure to drop
in to visit the cancer nurses who are now devoted to saving other people in the
position I was in until recently. A few weeks back my wife and I took my
daughter in so we could introduce her to the staff. Over the six months of my
treatment they had regularly seen my wife as the pregnancy advanced, but just a
few weeks before the baby arrived my need to visit the cancer clinic ended.

As we wandered around the clinic with the baby in a pram we were greeted with great enthusiasm. In a hospital ward where the foreboding
sense of death lingers heavy in the air, we were instead bringing in new life.

The baby they held and cooed and pinched was perhaps the
best manifestation of just why we all battle on when nature tests us.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Naming a child is one of the greatest responsibilities a
parent has. Short of some dramatic action by its bearer, a person is stuck with
a name for life and all the nominative
determinist consequences that flow from it. While opening it up to the
whims of the democratic process was one option (Baby
McBabyface?) and engaging the services of a baby name consultant was another, Melanie
and I opted to take on the responsibility ourselves.

Our criteria? We wanted a name that suited a child as well
as the adult she will become. We wanted a name that conveyed both warmth and
gravitas. We wanted a name that carried some broader meaning, within our family
and beyond it. We wanted a name that was easy to say and easy to spell. And we
wanted a name that sounded good, in its entirety and when each part stood on
its own.

For us, it wasn’t just the given names that needed to be
chosen. With Melanie and I each keeping our family names when we got married,
our daughter’s family name also needed to be decided.

In the end we named our daughter Amelia Sara Calvert. For
those curious, there’s a story behind each part.

Amelia has a long history as a girl’s name across several
European cultures. In Latin it means
“industrious”, a quality we would be proud to have in a daughter. The name
has recently come back into vogue across the English-speaking world, though
unlike the emerging popularity of other names, there is no clear celebrity
trigger for this one.

Instead the most famous Amelia is the great aviatrix (what a
word!) Amelia Earhart,
a swashbuckling American adventurer who in 1928 was the first women to fly
across the Atlantic Ocean. Earhart’s story resonates with our family – she was
independent-minded, loved to fly and was a talented writer.

"The stars seemed near enough to touch and never before
have I seen so many. I always believed the lure of flying is the lure of
beauty, but I was sure of it that night."

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The
rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you
decide to do. You can act to change and control your life and the procedure.
The process is its own reward."

"One of my favorite phobias is that girls, especially
those whose tastes aren't routine, often don't get a fair break... It has come
down through the generations, an inheritance of age-old customs, which produced
the corollary that women are bred to timidity."

"Never interrupt someone doing something you said
couldn't be done."

Sara, our daughter’s middle name, was given in honour of her
great grandmother, who died in 2013 after a long and interesting life that
started in Bialystok, Poland, and ended in Melbourne. Middle names have become
an apt way to honour deceased relatives on my side of the family and we were
keen to continue the tradition.

My grandmother would have been very excited to
have met her great granddaughter and would have no doubt imparted great advice,
much of it wise but all of it entertaining. The family tree for whom Amelia is
the newest twig shows a Chaya Sara Fink born in Krynki, Poland, in about 1815,
so our daughter is bearing a middle name that has been around for seven
generations in our family.

Calvert, our daughter’s family name, is Melanie’s family
name. While we have defied one convention in this naming decision, we hope to
create a new one.

Melanie and I have a very equal relationship. From finances
to housework to decision-making, the two of us each enjoy equal benefits, and
bear equal responsibility. So when we got married in 2014, it seemed natural to
us that we would retain our existing family names rather than have one of us
relinquish our name. (It was, perhaps, a reflection of the fact we were both in
our 30s and had established independent lives, with our own names, when we got
married.)

For us, the tradition of a woman taking on her husband’s
name (and the inverse) had a faint hint of possessiveness that we could not
countenance. It also put a partner in an awkward position if the relationship
were to dissolve and they were left with a family name for a family of which
they are no longer a part. While our relationship was strong then and remains
so, you never know what the future will bring.

So what name to give to children? One option is a hybrid
name that combines parts or all of the parents’ names into a new name, whether
as a portmanteau or a double-barrelled name. But this relies on the good
fortune of names that work well together, with was not the case in our
situation (Shalvert? Carp?). It can also be difficult to perpetuate across
future generations without names becoming long and unwieldy.

We needed another approach. We had long been fond of the
idea of children taking on the family name of their same-gendered parent, so a
daughter takes on the family name of her mother and a son takes on the family
name of his father. This approach is a more equal one, giving both parents a
chance to pass on their name and not privileging one parent over the other as
the head of the household.

Once we found out we were having a girl, it was an easy
decision to follow through on the approach we had agreed to. As the parent
whose name would not be borne by his child, I was totally relaxed about the
decision. The pride I will take in my daughter in the years ahead will come
from her personality and her accomplishments, not specifically from her family
name.

In Amelia’s case, we had extra reason to give her Melanie’s
family name. I am one of five children (including three boys) so there is a
strong chance that my family name will be passed on through at least one of us.
But the future of the Calvert name in Melanie’s family is less assured. Melanie
has one sister, whose wonderful daughter has her father’s family name. Melanie
also has two female cousins with her family name. Under the conventional
approach to naming, the Calvert name in this part of the family would end at
this generation. I am pleased that, with the arrival of Amelia, there will be
at least one further generation of Calverts.

So that’s how we came to name our daughter the way we did.
Of course, now that the name is hers she is free to do with it what she wishes
– to keep it, to modify it or to replace it with something entirely different.
For now, though, we think Amelia Sara Calvert sounds just great.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

As I sit writing this post my soundscape is filled with the
contented murmurings of my daughter as she sleeps in the bassinet beside my
bed. During a point in each sleep cycle she becomes quite animated, her
breathing quick and irregular, her little palms flailing in front of
her face and her lips letting out wordless utterances of agony or ecstasy. Such
is the way with the dreams of a newborn child, where the realness of the experience
manifests itself in the physiology of the dreamer.

Just what a newborn dreams about is hard to imagine - perhaps a pleasant dream
about the cosiness of the womb or a nightmare about her sudden exit from it.

My daughter Amelia entered the world just two weeks ago. Every moment since
then has been one of bliss for my wife Melanie and I, even the moments when
Amelia's contented murmurings metamorphosise into pained screams from deep in
her lungs.

As parents of a newborn we can quite happily while away the hours with Amelia,
cuddling up and talking to her when she is awake and watching and
listening to her as she sleeps. At first the appreciation centres on her
physical cuteness - the dainty feet, the elaborately formed ear, the smooth
crevices of her neck. All are a sensory delight that look so delicate, smell so
fresh and are so soft that your fingertips barely detect that they've made
contact.

But then the appreciation moves to the things she does. If she's in the right
mood she can beguile us by making eye contact and staring deep into our souls -
or so it seems. She can signal her desire for a feed not just with a throaty
cry but with pleading eyes and an outstretched tongue. She can perform multiple
bodily functions in perfect synchronicity and seemingly minimal effort. She can
appear completely unconcerned as her whole body shudders in the throes of
hiccoughs. Perhaps most satisfying for me is to watch her grapple with mild
distress by taking in her surroundings and adjusting herself to achieve
physical and psychological comfort on her own, rather than pushing the infant
panic button.

Yes, I know, all these things have been going on with newborns since the dawn
of time and are of no great interest to people other than a child's parents.
The seen-it-all-a-thousand-times-before malaise of some of the midwives we've
encountered is hard to miss. But we are her parents and so can't help but be
captivated and intrigued by them.

Perhaps a small part of my fascination with the minutiae of my daughter's
existence comes from the small but real possibility that I wasn't around to
enjoy it. Before she'd reached the end of her first trimester in the womb I was
diagnosed with my lymphoma and told I would need to undertake a battering of
chemotherapy to maximise my chances of survival. The tumour in my chest was
putting pressure on a heart valve, and my doctor later told me that it would
have killed me within a week if we didn't start treatment when we did.

During the long months when my energy was sapped by the cell-killing drugs of
my R-EPOCH cocktail I yearned for the day when it was all over. Sure, there was
the relief from the physical symptoms, but most importantly, I wanted to know
that I was one of the lucky ones who could tell stories of survival rather than
a poor soul unable to escape cancer's deathly grip.

In the depths of my treatment I dreamed of the life I would have if only I
could be among the survivors. Top of the list of things I desperately wanted to
do was the cradle my newborn daughter in my arms and tell her everything is
okay, knowing it was the truth.

It is a cliché of confronting hardship, medical or otherwise, that your
children give you a reason to battle on. In truth I was pretty determined to
battle on regardless. But the looming arrival of my daughter meant that my
survival was not just something I desired so that I could continue to enjoy my
life, but was now an obligation I had to another person in order to ensure she
had her father in her life. To have succumbed to the disease would have denied
my daughter something very precious.

Of course there is still the very real prospect that my health troubles will
return and I will once again have to confront the prospect of denying my
daughter an active father in her life. For now, though, things are looking pretty
rosy and I can marvel at the wondrous things my daughter does, even if every
other person in the history of humanity has done something similar.

Such simple pleasures, I am rapidly discovering, are the hallmarks of parenthood.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Since my diagnosis last year I've shared my reflections on
this blog. Now it's time for Melanie, the woman who has been by my side
throughout, to have her say.

October 2015 was a memorable month in our household. We were
in the early stages of a much-anticipated pregnancy and digesting the news of a
possible job offer overseas. And Ari was rapidly becoming unwell with what
turned out to be a primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma. Fast forward six months
and with treatment over it seems like the right time to look back on the
experience of being a cancer spouse.

1. Listen when other people say it's more important to be at
the hospital than in the office. There are always going to be other people who
can write articulate and persuasive documents (although usually not the people
who assert that this is their skill set), but not many people can hug your
husband before surgery. I deeply appreciated having a boss who supported me
using my accumulated carer's leave and helped make the case for a work iPad.
Responding to work emails can be as good a way as any to pass the hours waiting
for news in hospital wards ... and no one will notice if you roll your eyes at
the more ridiculous requests.

2. Sometimes the best thing someone else can do to is take
the initiative. Many people asked how they could help over the past six months
and sometimes we were able to come up with a good answer (thanks Jude and Pete
for mowing the lawn, and Ruth and Will for loaning me your shower when Ari was
too cytotoxic for us to share a bathroom, and Brie and Ella for taking over
managing the netball team). But often it was hard to think of something
specific - and at those times it was great when friends and family made their
own call. The food hampers, frozen homemade dinners and gift vouchers for food
delivery services were much appreciated. It was good to have visitors in
hospital when Ari felt up to it. As a habitual organiser of social get-togethers,
I was particularly grateful for friends suggesting and organising gatherings
where I only had to remember to rock up. And our parents were thoughtful in
finding ways to help - constructing a baby's room, playing the role of medical
warrior to find all the info we could on treatment, managing logistics and
doing laundry - which is possibly more than Ari and I deserved when we had both
been stubbornly resistant to well-meaning parental assistance for decades.
Asking for help graciously is a difficult skill, but one I will continue to
practice after we have a new baby in the house!

3. Any cancer story is part of a larger cancer narrative.
Lots of people's lives have been touched by cancer. And many friends and family
were generous in sharing their own stories, mostly of battles fought and won.
It was always encouraging to hear about those who made it through - especially
those (Kylie and Anita, Skip and Alice, and Adelle) who had experience with
lymphoma and had wise advice to share. As Ari has written about previously, the
protagonists in a story can set the tone, and we were keen to be optimistic.
But acting as though beating cancer is just about having the right attitude is
not fair to those who have fought the battle and lost. I miss my lovely friend
Liv who passed away in 2014 after two years of giving it her all. Sometimes the
science just isn't enough. Hearing a lot of stories confirmed the feeling that
Ari, while unlucky to have cancer, was lucky to have a cancer that was very
responsive to chemotherapy, lucky to live just down the road from the brand new
Canberra Region Cancer Centre, and lucky to have a bub on the way.

4. Hang out with friends who have news of their own. Some
coffee catch-ups are inevitably going to be a bit one-sided with updates on
doctors' appointments, blood tests and scan results. But it is tiring to focus
on your own crises all the time, and therefore refreshing to hear about the ups
and downs in other people's lives, including the lighthearted stories. I
encourage friends to say "I hear your medical update and I raise you one
unbelievable tale of
going-out-on-Thursday-night-meeting-a-lovely-boy-and-then-having-to-sit-next-to-him-in-an-interdepartmental-committee-meeting-the-next-day".

5. It's okay to cry. I'm not a big crier generally (apart
from sad movies ... and scary movies, and I extend my apologies again to the
guy who thought that The Sixth Sense was a good date movie back in 1999). But a
good cry in the car driving home from the hospital can cleanse the spirit so
that the next task can be tackled. And despite Aussie office culture being
largely antithetical to overt displays of emotion, unless the subject is
football, I found my colleagues were remarkably robust with the occasional
teary episode. There is also unexpected humour to be found in dealing with
hospitals, doctors, other patients and well-wishers and it's good to share
these experiences too so it's not all delicate and gloomy.

6. Napping on the couch is strongly encouraged. I'm not sure
why it's more comfy to fall asleep on the couch than to walk all the way to the
bedroom and get into bed (I should note that we live in a one-bedroom house, so
the walk "all the way" to the bedroom is about 1.5 metres). Perhaps
pregnancy was an added soporific in my case. Getting enough sleep, whatever way
you can, makes everything else a bit more doable.

7. Tempt the parking deities. I'm not sure what
transport-related goddesses I must have prayed to in a previous life (Adeona,
the Roman goddess of journeys, or Hecate, the Greek goddess of the crossroads
perhaps) but I incurred no parking fines in six months of leaving the car in
one-hour spots at the hospital for what turned out to be five-hour visits. I
abided by the rules as much as possible. But I also decided that it was not a
priority to have the right change or download the right app (I'm looking at you
ANU), and that fines would be paid if they came. And having had my six months
of grace I'm now back to conscientious parking payments.

8. Having cancer is an individual event, but battling it can
be a team sport. No matter how crappy it is to watch someone you love have
toxins pumped into them or wait for days for test results, it is crappier to be
that person. It is important to take cues from the star player in the game -
something I didn't always get right. I know I offered irritatingly sunny
optimism in times of frustration and unnecessary assistance with basic tasks,
which reinforced the feeling of being an invalid. But being "here if you
need", as they say in netball, is really important. While Ari and I didn't
mention the traditional "in sickness and in health" in our marriage
vows, recent research shows that being married helps cancer patients survive
longer. So I like to think I have done my bit to ensure Ari is around for a
long time to come, adding amusing updates to this blog.